Posted 28 September 2009 - 05:42 AM
xmpp is jabber, a superior IM protocol.
As for a channel (due to my extensive IRC background i absolutely hate the word chat room) it should stay open 24/7, due to people being on the complete other side of the world.
Here take this senerio, you have #aeroxp on EFNet, bryant, rob, the other staff etc... have ops, subscribers get voice, have a aeroxp bot in the channel (i'd be happy to donate one i have several on EFNet already), and have a QWebIRC or Eris Flash Chat for the main website. That solves infrastructure.
Keep an op in North America, Europe, and Asia or Australia at minimum. Have a good firm grip on how bans, exceptions, and invex (cmode +beI respectively) work. That covers channel moderation. Not only does IRC have the /ignore system, but EFNet also has CallerID, umode +g, which is a server side ignore system. This covers members harassing other members in a /query.
Sure you might run across the one or two kids who will switch hosts to banevade, you can ban hostmasks channelside just as well as you could with a k/d:line. If you still have issues, /stats p for an available oper, because that's their job.
This senerio:
* Allow those who already use IRC to be able to use it.
* Allow those who don't to use a web chat panel.
* Allows for moderation but not harassment.
* Doesn't require everybody who uses IRC already to connect to a separate network for one channel.